I have been an avid cacher for almost 2 years now. I love the hunt--the outdoors, the challenge, the competition. However, there are a few things that bother me about the game today...here they are, and I look forward to hearing yours...

--Cachers who find, find, find without placing, placing, placing caches. For example, there's one NYC-area cacher whose find-hide ratio is 2775:5. Give back to the community!

--Caches that are left 'temporarily unavailable' for months. Either fix it or archive it!

--Cachers that consistently trade down. I've seen the contents of some of my caches go from great to mediocre thanks to people who take the best stuff and leave crap. If you can't trade evenly or up, TNLN!

--The moratorium on virtual caches. Enough is enough--TPTB need to realize that there are some spots where you just CAN'T put a micro.

That's all for now...I'm not usually a complainer, but these are a few things that bother me in an otherwise great community of cachers. Let's hear your thoughts!

IntotheWoods :)

07-03-2004, 09:58 PM

danosphere

Pet Peeves...

IntotheWoods;

Please don't take this personally, but this is in regards to your lament on one's find/place ratio.

Currently, my find/place ratio is 125:0. As an active duty sailor, I am 'from away' and thus non-native to Mid-coast Maine. Believe me, if I knew the area like the local cachers, I would be putting them out too. For example, I would never have gone down the road to your hide Railroad Ramble unless there was an approved cache there. I spied the sign for Bliss Woods after doing the and was doing some research on it, but lo and behold my geo-nemesis BlueGrassGyrl beat me to it ;) I have a canoe now, so maybe I can place one on an island or two :eek: I am in the process of adopting the LaVerna preserve cache, but there are still some land ownership issues that are not settled. I suppose I could dump some silly micros out like they do in North Florida, but what is the joy in that? I think the vast majority of the local caches here are of high quality and have been worth the time put in. I would not want any cache I put out to be any less than equal to what is already out there.

My peeve are cachers who hide a dozen or so caches and only have a few finds themselves. Comments?

07-03-2004, 10:35 PM

attroll

Quote:

Originally Posted by danosphere

IntotheWoods;
My peeve are cachers who hide a dozen or so caches and only have a few finds themselves. Comments?

I can relate to that statement. I did a multi cache that really turned me off to multi caching. I have no desire right now to do another multi cache because of the one I did. I hated it. I will not go into detail on it. But after I got home from doing the multi cache I looked at the users profile that did the multi cache and he only had six caches to his name and I just looked and he has not done one since and it has been quite a while. I think it should be a pre requisite to have so many finds before you can place a caches.

07-04-2004, 01:19 AM

IntotheWoods

Totally in agreement, gents. I believe a cacher should have at least 10 cache finds before he/she is allowed to place a cache...it would solve a lot of problems!

07-04-2004, 05:40 AM

brdad

I agree with IntotheWoods, except for:

The hide/find ratio - If the ratio stays consistent, the number of placed caches will grow incredibly, and before we know it cache desity is more than people density. I'm not sure, but I am allready getting to the point where I think Maine's cache density might be more than I care for very soon. I don't mind driving a few miles for quality - right now Maine has some great caches. And less fact it, we all have different abilities when it comes to hiding caches - some can hide a decent cache without never finding one, others ... well, maybe should never be hiding any! No offense to anyone - I think all Maine caches placed by people near to our state have done well hiding.

The moratorium on virtual caches - the is no moratorium on virtual caches! The moratorium is on locationless caches. You can still place a virtual, but it just needs to be very worthy. With a little imagination and effort, you can use the "less than perfect according to gc.com" virtuals a stage of a multi, such as I did with my battleship cache.

07-04-2004, 03:37 PM

parmachenee

--Cachers who find, find, find without placing, placing, placing caches. For example, there's one NYC-area cacher whose find-hide ratio is 2775:5. Give back to the community!

I would oppose a ratio because it would deter people from becoming cachers thinking "big brother" is watching all the time. GC.COM is doing a quality job managing the "rules" and adding a management issue like this would be very cumbersome to oversee and enforce. The other reason is that many people become fervent cachers in the first months of caching but for many varied reasons lose interest or just have other priorities. The potential caches they have placed would no longer be maintained.

--Cachers that consistently trade down. I've seen the contents of some of my caches go from great to mediocre thanks to people who take the best stuff and leave crap. If you can't trade evenly or up, TNLN!

Murphy's cache rule #267: The amount of junk a cache accumulates is directly proportional to the amount of visits it has received.
:rolleyes:
I know what you mean. We visited a cache yesterday with a half-smoked cigar in it and had someone put a used tube of lipstick in one of ours.

07-05-2004, 08:37 AM

WhereRWe?

I agree with Intothewoods about cachers who find a few caches, then think they have enough experience to know what contitutes a good cache. I didn't place my first cache until I'd found about 40, and then I thought I knew what a good cache contained, what container was good, how to hide a cache, and what good dirctions and hints were.

And MY pet peeve: microcaches EVERYWHERE and ANYWHERE. (But that subject has been discussed before...)

07-05-2004, 09:41 AM

Haffy

I too waited til I had a number of caches under my belt before I hid my first one.I think maybe almost 100. I had wanted to hide one long before that but I wanted my first one to be well thought out and planned and somewhere special that would be appreciated by all the people that found it. I think I succeeded in that first endeavor from the comments that I received thus far. I do plan on hiding more in the future but the same procedure will go into my 2nd as my 1st. It has to be somewhere special that other people will appreciate as much as I do. There are slim pickens it seems in my area but I will hopefully find a place that comes up to my expectations,if not then finding others will have to do for now. Just my 2 cents

07-05-2004, 06:50 PM

parmachenee

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhereRWe?

I didn't place my first cache until I'd found about 40, and then I thought I knew what a good cache contained, what container was good, how to hide a cache, and what good dirctions and hints were.

Which further supports, not supports, the cache find/place ratio. I totally agree you should be PREPARED to place a cache...have knowledge of what a GOOD cache is, and be willing to MAINTAIN it, but not be required to place a cache based on numbers.

07-05-2004, 08:05 PM

Pooh and friends

A problem I have run into is not being able to obtain permission to place a cache, espically if it is on town owned or managed land. There seems to be to much politics involved and I wonder if a lot of caches are just placed on a dont ask, dont tell basis. :cool: